British Actress Nicky Bingham Teaches art of Acting to Children

These photos were shot during a children’s programme at the Bal Bhavan children park in Bangalore. When I visited that event thinking that it will be another painting or craft making for children, to my surprise I saw this British actress and teacher Nicky Bingham imparting the art of acting to some 150 odd children all huddled up with full attention to every word and action she was making. The parents of these were standing in the backdrop to also learn some acting lessons.

Nicky also told these children as to how her long journey in acting started and what changed her course to also impart these finer techniques of natural acting.
Nicky told the attentive children that “When I was a child, I always knew that acting was in my blood. Some people tried to deter me because of its unstable nature but as soon as I went to drama school at 21, I knew I had found my home,” and added that when she chose to travel with a touring theatre company to South America, little did she know this was a decision that was going to change her life.
“I moved to Argentina for a year, we were based in Buenos Aires and touring the surrounding countries. When the tour finished, I stayed on for a couple of months and was offered a permanent job working in the acting field. I was actually getting more work in Argentina than I was in London,” she told the crowd who started to cheer her. Nicky Bingham style of acting and teaching is unique, she says that the audience should first understand what you as an actor is trying to convey through your words and action as this is gauged by them, once you have them in your sway then you have to build that tempo so that they end up not only watching your performance but remember it for a long period of their life.

Nicky also told them that what one as to do as an actor and as a teacher in acting. “When you’re in a play you are part of a team and you only have your character to think about. There are challenges, you constantly have to think of other people and work with others.
But as a teacher “you are on your own, you are responsible for everything: for all the characters, the narrative and for not missing out the crucial events. It’s hard because I’m responsible for the whole audience,” she told the children who by then had already gone through some real story telling by her. One may not be surprised I they get to see some of these students hitting the acting scene shortly with the lessons learnt from Nicky Bingham and give their senior actors a run for their money.